NICA: A Novel Toolbox for Near-Infrared Spectroscopy Calculations and Analyses

FIGURE 1. The surface of the GUI is divided into different panels: Information about the measurement data (A); settings for the pre-processing of the measurement data, correction methods for physiological artifacts, excluding noisy channels or trials, and options for visualizing the results of the analysis (B); information about the current analysis status (C); a push button to start the analysis (D); information about the individual analysis and signal processing steps (E); and menu bar items allow the user to load the measurement data and save the analysis settings (F).

FIGURE 2. Different probe sets, which can be selected with the corresponding number and positions of the channels.

FIGURE 3. Error handling: The source of the error is displayed at the panel Analysis Status; more detailed information is displayed at the panel Output Text and at the popup window Error Dialog.

FIGURE 4. Physiological signals: BP waves with systolic (red line, BPsys) and diastolic (blue line, BPdia) values (A); movement of the thorax due to respiration (B); HR values (C); and peaks of the ECG signal (D).

FIGURE 5. Power of the frequency spectrum of oxy-Hb (red line) and deoxy-Hb (blue line) signals, before (thin line, raw) and after (thick line, clean) artifact correction, averaged over all channels. The corrected frequency bands are highlighted in green.

FIGURE 6. Concentration change of oxy-Hb (red) and deoxy-Hb (blue) at channel 30 (motor cortex, left hemisphere), averaged over all trials. The vertical lines at t = 0 and t = 12 indicate the start and the end of the right-hand ME task.

FIGURE 7. 2-D topographical maps, representing the changes of oxy-Hb (top row) and deoxy-Hb (bottom row) over the scalp, divided into four time-ranges (t1 = −5 to 0 s, t2 = 0–7 s, t3 = 7–14 s, t4 = 14–20 s). The colors orange/red indicate an increase of the concentration, green/blue a decrease.